Fish Rescue with the Canal & River Trust

Engineering work was being carried out on the Birmingham canal at Wolverhampton. So the Canal & River trust drained the Birmingham canal in a section between two locks. They then carried out a fish rescue. They used electricity Electro fishing to stun the fish and then gather them in nets and move them to a safe area of the canal. We see a few fish. Perch, Roach and an Eel. We speak to a fisheries expert from the canal and River trust and learn some fascinating fishy facts about Eels and canal fish in general. When lock gates are being replaced on Britains canal network parts of the canal have to be closed and drained. This is a fascinating time as we get to see a drained canal. Plus we see the fish wildlife living in the canal.

So do you remember when we did the um the lock at ellare Port uh and we went down into the drain Canal lock and we looked at the work they were doing for replacing the the gates and I said at the time when they talked about the fish

Rescue I said wow I’d love to see that hello my name is Marty welcome back to another video I’m here in wolver Hampton on the Birmingham Mainline Canal the canal and River trust have uh drained this section of the canal because they’re putting in new Gates and they’re going to do a fish Rescue so we’re a bit out of our comfort zone here in wolver Hampton outway but it’s been a pleasure to come down invited down by the canal and River trust like I say you can see this section here they’ve drained new lock Gates either end and obviously they have

To do fish rescue I’m going to show you some footage of the uh the guys going into the um what remains of the the canal and they’re going to walk along and they’re going to stun the fish with electricity and then they’re going to net them out so we’ll be interesting to

See what sort of fish they bring out I’m going to get an expert to speak to you in a bit and tell you exactly what’s going on and give you some fish facts this is John Ellis from the canal and River trust so John can you tell us

What’s going on here today yeah we’re here today on the canal on the wolver Hampton flight and I’m supervising the fish rescue operation brilant now you might be wondering why we’re bothering rescuing the fish well actually it’s a legal requirement if we allowed the fish to Simply die canal and rivet trust

Would be almost certainly prosecuted under the Animal Welfare act so we have a a legal duty to protect the fish and so what we’re doing is rescuing them we actually pass a small electric current sort of 1 to 2 amps into the water that sort of temporarily stuns the fish

Disables their ability to swim they float to the surface the operatives then use use a hand net put them in some clean air rated water recover for 5 to 10 minutes and then we’ll put them back in the nearest section of canal that’s actually full of water so I’m hoping to

Find some Pike uh Pike terrifying me I I reserve the right I’m a little bit squeamish about fish the sliminess and the prehistoric nature of them all and everything but it call me soft I’ll just have to declare that one right now I’m hoping to see we see some Pik we may not

So we’re up to the net now we’re hoping we’ve driven something big monstrous up here I was looking to see some Pike today but we’re not seeing any Pike no um I thought you might get a pike or two here we usually do but having said that

It’s quite a small pound Pike are quite territorial you’d expect to find one perhaps every 100 or 200 M oh is that how it works is that yes Pike are very much very much territorial wow He a little bit more down look at that fish soup so John after the fish have been stunned um how long did they all recover and how long did they take to recover they virtually all recover it would be not true to say that no fish has ever died but

99.9% of the fish survive they recover in or 2 to 10 minutes depends a bit on the on the weather on the conductivity of the water really and the temperature the cooler it is the better so we’ve gone um 1B further up to release the fish um and we can show you some

Pictures of the fish oh nice oh that’s beautiful that it look at that that is gorgeous got some nice roach they’re already coming back to like yeah they’re all getting ready to go some of the smaller ones will take a bit longer trying and finding this eel

There’s an eel in there somewhere but they’re very slippery customers not t some stunning perch I’ll get some of these back and see if I can find the eel dly don’t like doing this work once April’s out it’s not a it’s not a summer job unless there’s no

Other option you know because obviously the fish would die if he didn’t rescue them but it’s not something we like to do in the really hot weather is this because we’re in a state of like metabolic metabolically totally right yeah is that right yes so the fish they

Are the same temperature as has the water right and so when it’s cold everything the chemical reactions are slow so the fish is metabolism is slow it doubles for every 10° Centigrade rise in temperature and so if you go from 4° to 24 you’ve you’ve quadrupled the rate

Of chemical reactions and fish need much more oxygen much more food and the electricity is going to affect them greater much more so yes right yes so I don’t like electri fishing in the summer months usually by the middle of April that’s that’s late enough I mean it

Might depend it depends on the water temperature and the part of the country but if you get a warm spell in April that’s telling you that it’s time to um stop electri fishing so I’ll just show you where we are in wolver Hampton we got the train so we’re just up from the

Station um just up sort of North if you like on the Birmingham canal and we’re around around this area here around locks s and eight on the Birmingham Canal so obviously all this work is for new lock Gates and I’m going to show you now the new lock Gates they’re in place

They’re looking good they’re made of oak as we know from the elme port video but I’ll show you now um they’ve got the crane system up there the winch system up there and they’ve obviously loow lowered them in at the bottom end there we’ll go onto a bridge and we’ll look at

The other set of lock Gates that they’ve replaced as well and you’ll see the way they’ve lowered the the gates in there on that and then uh you can see actually what they weigh there in kilogram I don’t if you can see that there you go the weighting

Kilograms and that’ll be a little plaque on there given the date and everything but they they’re looking pretty good then they’re looking pretty good look at the um I don’t know what this bit’s called but this is how you open and close them this long piece here absolutely fantastic and those are made

In Britain those at the canal and River canal and River trust workshops I think that is the paddle down there is it that lets the water ining out you can just see but uh very very interesting and what we’ll do is we’ll go on that bridge

At that far end up there and we’ll take a look at the other set of lock Gates so we’ll get a good view of them so there’s you go top end of the uh of the the locks and you can see the work being done here down there uh where are we we

Can just see there that leaf gets out the way the new lock Gates there so I’m going to show you the old Gates that they’ve removed they’re just on one of the bolts here um a ton each apparently the way there the old Gates there lock number seven you see you can

See here this is the actual gate you can see the hinge mechanism now they just sort of like I think they just want a bracket sits in there or this the kind of uh I use the I he the term float so apparently fish are very important

For the ecology can you talk us through that one there please they are very important for the ecology they are part of a natural ecosystem so you know fish are feeding on small insects and things like that and there are of course other living things that rely on fish

Populations for their food King Fishers herons even otters they need healthy fish populations and fish populations are pretty good indicator of the health of of the canal of its water quality cuz if the water quality isn’t any good you won’t find a fish population and that was true in some

Parts of the network when I joined in the 1980s but since then water quality’s improved particularly in parts of Yorkshire and here on the Birmingham Canal Network the guys that are doing the the rescue are going to do two sweeps so they’re doing an initial sweep

Then let some more water out at the bottom end down there and then they’ll do a Second Sweep and and sort of like pick up any any stragglers or anything like that so it’ be interesting to see what they’re finding now if there’s anything lurking in the

Depths well as you can see second run and it’s just a final uh B mopping up anything they’ve not not found before there’s a little one here but I think it might be I think it might be the end of the road for it no it’s still moving is it still moving it’s

To yeah still moving how long could you stay out water wet it’s wet for a long time there you go our little friend’s been rescued so whether you’re walking running cycling boating walking the dogs or taking the kids fishing we all love a canal and the wildlife we see by the

Canals so the canal River trust is a charity and there’s donate button there on their website and as you can see here if you love the work they do much of it done by volunteers and the fact that they’re a charity you can drop them a

Couple of quid there if you choose to do so you can also donate by phone or by post so there you go support your local canal and the work of the canal and River trust so some buried in the mud there oh there he is yeah did youten get ears um they’re more

Fire mat than they used to be they’re they’re um there’s lot I find a lot in Wales need wow it’s a CO isn’t it get it right the Go Head yeah eels are severely critically endangered I think the technical term yes they are more endangered more risk of going extinct

Than the Chinese panda there’s an interesting fact yes the population of pandas is stable whereas the population of eels has declined or the European eel has declined by approximately 90% over the last 30 years and canals a really important habitat for eels they enjoy the silty muddy conditions and they can

Spend anything from 15 to 20 years living on our canals before they then return back to the saraso sea from where they came some number of years ago it’s 15 to 20 years they can live yes well they can live maybe 40 50 wow and

Imagine they get to some size by the end of the is that right the biggest eel I’ve ever seen on a fish rescue is about 4 kilos 8 and2 pound W which is very close to the largest eel that’s ever been caught on Roden line fantastic in

The UK so canals for Anglers who are interested in fishing for eels and there there’s a few of them they hold fish of specimen well so some of this information that John’s given us is blowing my mind the fact about the eels has has just blown my mind completely um

I never ever knew that but the way that they navigate is fantastic so if you’re enjoying this video I highly recommend you go to the canal and River Trust website um and you can click on here things to do and if you click on there you could even find an open day where

They may be doing some work on a canal near you and you can go along and see behind the scenes John was also telling us about a section on the canal and River trust web page where you can learn to fish and it’s something that’s great for any beginners if you’d ever been

Fishing before you can take the kids down to various workshops and you can learn how to fish responsibly and they’ve got a list of events there where you can find a fishing event and you can go down and check fishing lessons te the kids down teach them to fish responsibly

There you go I’m sure there’s something in your area a wealth of information on the canal and River Trust website and I wanted to ask you about um invading species cuz we sometimes find oursel in the odd River and we see these uh crayfish do you have any invading

Species of fish that shouldn’t be here yes as well as the signal cray fish which aren’t technically fish but are actually legally fish strangely under the salmon and fresh water fish act it says cray fish fish but forgetting the signal cray fish if we actually put what are taxonomically fish there’s four or

Five species different species of invasives in the UK the one which causes the canal and River trust most issues is a species called Xander Xander native to Europe but not native to England it does very well in places that are highly colored what we call tured and shallow

In other words it’s ideally suited to canals the problem with that is that it it basically destroys the roach populations Gooding populations and the Bullhead populations now Bullhead are an iucn red lless protected species so it’s having quite a detrimental impact on the Ecology of some of the canals in the

West Midlands where it’s reasonably well established so we’re working to Halt its further spread and where people illegally introduce new populations we eradicate those where possible and we’ve done four successful eradications in the last half a dozen years or so so that’s a roach fry that would have been spawned

About last May yeah yeah that’s me yeah so it’s it’s you know about 8 months old that one you look at the scale so this is another road you look at the scales on them they’re like trees you you can they have rings on and you can AG the

Fish oh is that what you do yes so if you took a scale put it under the microscope you could pretty much work out how old it is cuz it grows in the summer doesn’t grow in the winter just like a tree ah and it add a blue tinge

To the to the Earth yes the roach has a lovely a hint of hint of blue indeed you can see that on the camera yeah and they do vary a bit in color fish depending on you know the water where they live really you find really peetey water they

Go really dark do they I’ll just put these back right for safety so this lot are going to Freedom again now in the uh the other part of the canal where there’s uh plenty of water so I’ve got a question for you and it’s something that perplexes me when I’m

Walking down I live near the roxdale canal and uh I see these little ducklings and I’ve seen the size of some of the Pike in the canal and I often wonder if the pike are ever a threat to ducks or ducklings absolutely they are yes oh yeah you’ve terrified me yeah I’m

Afraid to say it’s part of nature nature can be a bit cruel and vicious at times but yes a pike will certainly take a a duckling but all duckling not perhaps even an adult an adult bird they’ll certainly they’ll certainly try I’ve se you know seen lots of photos of

Pike with with small birds in their stomach when it’s icy and the the the Canal’s iced over this doesn’t bother the fish to just go metabolically slower is exactly underneath underneath the ice the water temperature is 4° Centigrade that’s when it’s most dense so water is

You know it freezes from the top rather than freezing from the bottom basically the fish sit at the bottom not doing very much probably don’t eat for days and weeks on in right um if you got an exceptional winter like 1963 which which is a winter when I was

A very young fella yeah the last really bad one where where Lakes would freeze with 18 in of ice you literally got some lakes in scupture where the where they froze from top to bottom and then it does kill fish yeah yeah yeah but that’s

Quite a that’s quite a rare thing and in that winter the population of king fish has crashed by something like 90% because they couldn’t access food cuz everything everything was literally frozen over the same would have been true in 1947 I think right so no pike

Today but eels the eel fact just blew my mind John was amazing in fantastic information wasn’t it yeah absolutely amazing I Blown Away by the eels store I never knew that so I’ve definitely learned something today don’t like the idea of the invasive fish cuz um we see

The uh the signal fish though with the signal cray fish and I always get a bit miffed about them but I can’t hurt any animal I find it difficult so whatever anyway you kept your distance from that heel I noticed I I I thought if he starts flipping about and touches me I

Might scream but maybe not I could never be a fisherman anyway that’s it so I hope you enjoyed seeing what we seen today seen the fish rescue thank you very much to the canal and River trust um for inviting us down back to Manchester back to Manchester thanks for watching take

Care see you in the next video bye for Now